Someday in the Park with Chords
by gardening
Summary: Odd Squad investigates a mystery which provides a bit of backstory for a certain episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.


1 The explanation and origin of this is saved for the end, in order to avoid spoilers.

ODD SQUAD

(Photo of Olympia)

My name is Agent Olympia.

(Photo of Otis)

This is my partner, Agent Otis.

(Photo of a pinball machine)

This is a photograph.

Who do we work for? We work for Odd Squad!

SOMEDAY IN THE PARK WITH CHORDS

Olympia and Otis stepped through the temporary portal projected into the side of a couch. They stood up and faced the young woman standing in her living room.

"What seems to be the problem, ma'am?" Otis asked.

"It's the filling in my tooth. It's receiving a radio station which plays nothing but country and western music, all day every day. It's really annoying."

Olympia smiled. "I know just the solution, ma'am. You find out the owner of the station, find out his favorite charities and favorite restaurants, wait for his favorite holiday, treat him and his wife to a fancy holiday dinner at his favorite restaurant, make polite conversation, find out all you can about him, and then promise a generous donation to his favorite charity if he will vary the format of his radio station a bit."

"Wouldn't it be easier to zap my tooth?"

"If you would prefer, ma'am," Otis said. He reached behind himself and pulled out a gadget. "I can use this tooth-radio-stationinator." Otis pulled a trigger and a multi-colored glow emerged and enveloped the woman's head. "Now to change the station, you can touch your tongue to a left molar, and for volume, touch a right molar."

"Thanks, Odd Squad!"

Olympia smiled. "Happy to help, have a great day!"

They disappeared into the portal and the woman sat down in her easy chair. The chair then wrapped its arms around her and said quietly, "Once upon a time–"

"ODD SQUAD!"

Having returned from resolving the second oddity, Olympia and Otis stepped out of the squishinator and O'Suzannah said, "Ms. O wants to see you."

"Thank you, O'Suzannah." Otis said.

They walked into the office and Ms. O said, "There you two are. Something very odd is happening."

"What is it?" Otis asked.

"The villains are cooperating! They are putting on some sort of street fair in front of City Hall!"

Noisemaker stepped forward. "And it is not only that now!"

Olympia was startled to see him there, but didn't say anything. Noisemaker continued. "They claim that it is for Lady Bread's birthday."

Ms. O nodded her agreement. "That's right, it is her birthday.

"But they had not done anything lavish for her other birthdays!" Noisemaker exclaimed. Otis was about to respond, but Noisemaker wasn't finished. "And they invite all of the tourists to wear costumes! And why are they celebrating this year? With music? And with all those costumes! And they did not include me! It is very disconcerting!"

Ms. O added, "There hasn't been this many villains together since the rock-paper-scissors episode! Something big is going on, and I want you to find out what it is!"

"Can you tell us if anything unusual has happened with any of the villains lately?" Otis asked.

Noisemaker shook his head. "They do not tell me anything since that episode with the villains' secret lair. I just can not keep a secret! I was hoping you could help me get back to being friends with them!"

"We'll see what we can do," Otis said.

Ms. O had heard enough. "Well, what are you waiting for? Go!"

As Agent Oboe led Noisemaker out the back door, Otis and Olympia went to the squishinator room. Otis said, "Let's find out if Oscar has noticed anything."

A few minutes later they were at Oscar's lab at Odd Squad Headquarters.

Oscar came out of his headquarters lab to greet Olympia and Otis. "Hey-o, agents! What can I do ya for?"

"We wondered if you noticed the villains are having a street fair on the plaza in front of City Hall?"

"No, actually, I hadn't. I've been so busy." He pulled a weird-looking gadget out of his pocket. "I've been working on this new invention. It's a singing-mineralinator. It induces different minerals to sing different songs–show tunes, ballads, folk, whatever. Could come in handy–"

"Uh, Oscar–" Otis said. "We've got this situation on the plaza."

"Oh. Yes. Of course. Well, if I notice anything that could help, I'll let you know."

They took the Headquarters Squishinator to the edge of the plaza in front of City Hall. They stayed in the inconspicuous spot with the picnic tables, and spent a minute watching the street fair. Tourists were wearing costumes, obviously enjoying themselves and the cacaphony of music and other surrounding noises.

Otis said, "Let's split up. I'll go this way, you go that way."

"Sure thing," Olympia agreed.

Soon Olympia found Lady Bread on a lavishly decorated stage, standing in front of a microphone, giving a presentation on getting people to do what you want. Since she had loaves of bread for hands, she had needed other people to do her bidding, and she was glad to share her highly advanced skills in manipulating people, even taking questions from the audience.

Otis found Tiny Dancer at another stage, taking song requests and showing off her diverse dancing skills in front of a captivated audience, cheering her on.

Olympia stopped by a booth to listen to Puppet Master and Puppy Master performing a two-person musical play on a stage show in front of an enthusiastic crowd.

Otis stood at the back of a large crowd mesmerized by Mr. Lightning's amazing musical light show.

Olympia noticed Jamie Jam doing a cooking demonstration, with jam of course. Her booth was extremely popular.

Otis strolled past Mr. Freeze's booth where he was doing a strange dance routine with streams of water, ice, snow, and steam.

Olympia watched Halvsie Harriet for a few minutes, as she sang odes to fractions, which she had written. Actually, it was only half of each song.

Otis meanwhile watched Sven Jorganson for a minute. He too was humming and singing simple, made-up tunes as he performed amazing feats of prestidigitation, changing things back and forth, from solid to liquid to gas and back again, in front of an amazed audience.

Then Otis turned to walk away, but froze in his tracks. A duck! Not just any duck, but a Time Duck! With great dignity and speed, he made an about-face and walked quickly away. He tapped his communicator.

"Go for O," Ms. O said. "What's going on?"

"I just saw a Time Duck here," Otis reported. "And it looks like all the villains in town are here!"

"It sounds like we should send in more agents."

"Great!" Otis said gratefully, and closed the connection. He continued walking, and saw Mr. Freeze doing artistic things with refrigerated lint and frozen soap bubbles. He walked quickly past, and stopped again. He saw Olympia. "Ms. O is sending more agents. A Time Duck is here."

Olympia said, "I just saw Puppy Master and Puppet Master giving a performance together!"

"Let's keep exploring the rest of the plaza," Otis suggested.

Meanwhile, Ms. O had sent several other pairs of agents to investigate the event.

Agent Ontogony and her partner Agent Optimal encountered a Time Gazelle next to a building across the street from the Plaza.

Ontogony took out her translator gadget, set it to Time Gazelle and asked it, "Why are you here?"

WRONG QUESTION came the reply in red letters on a screen.

"Let me try," Optimal said. "What is the crisis here and now?"

WRONG QUESTION came the reply again.

Ontogony tried again. "What do you need us to do?"

ALLOW STREET FAIR came the reply.

"They're so reticent, they won't even use the word 'the'!" Optimal laughed. He asked the Time Gazelle, "How long should we allow the Street fair?"

WRONG QUESTION the Time Gazelle replied, and vanished.

"Um," Ontogony began. "I think it means we didn't need to...interfere?"

"Let history take its course, I suppose," Optimal said. "A bit anti-climactic."

A few blocks away in the opposite direction, Agent Ornithocopter and Agent Oculist encountered a Time Venus' Fly-trap.

"What are you doing here?" Agent Oculist asked. "Not that we mind, we just wondered."

WRONG QUESTION, was the reply.

"Um, why are we here?" guessed Agent Ornithocopter.

WRONG QUESTION, the Time Venus' Fly-trap replied.

Oculist tried again. "Um, how about, how can we help?"

DO NOT INTERFERE WITH FAIR, came the final reply before the Time Venus' Fly-trap vanished.

A block from the plaza in another direction, Agent Orchestral and Agent Orpiment saw a pair of Time Armadillos suddenly appear.

Agent Orchestral asked, "What do you want?"

WRONG QUESTION, came the reply, in the form of red letters floating in midair.

"Who are you looking for?"

WRONG QUESTION, came again.

"What do you want us to do?"

BRING NOISEMAKER HERE, came the answer, and the Time Armadillos abruptly vanished.

"Okaaaay," Agent Orpiment said. "I'll go get him, while you watch here."

"All right. I was hoping the Time Prairie Dogs would appear," Orchestral said.

Agents Opine and Ornithomimus were watching Gooey Randall and Goopy Gus on a stage doing musical comedy slapstick when suddenly a pair of Time Iguanas popped into existence next to them. But none of the tourists seemed to notice; they were watching the stage.

Opine quickly set his translator gadget to Iguana.

"What are you doing here?"

WRONG QUESTION came the reply.

Ornithomimus said, "I want to try. Um, should we be fighting somebody?"

WRONG QUESTION was the reply.

Opine asked, "What is our purpose here?"

WRONG QUESTION, Came the reply again.

Ornithomimus tried once more. "Is there someone we should be looking for?"

TIME MASTER, came the reply.

"YAY!" both agents yelled, and did a high five as the Time Iguana vanished.

Meanwhile, Agents Odila and Odilla caught up with Otis and Olympia. Odila said, "We just took care of the Time Hyenas!"

Odilla added, "They wanted us to bring Jamie Jam some fresh fruit."

"That is odd," Otis said. As they skipped away, looking for fresh fruit and for more Time Animals, Opine and Ornithomimus rushed up to Otis. Opine said, "A Time Iguana told us to look for the Time Master!"

"Did you find out where to look for him?" Otis asked.

"No," Opine replied, dejected.

"Well, thanks for your help anyway!" Olympia said, "Let's all keep looking around and keep in touch!" As Opine and Ornithomimus skipped away, Olympia told Otis, "I just counted seventeen villains!" she said. "What's the real reason they're here?"

"They're drawing a lot of tourists." Otis remarked.

"Lots of attention." Olympia thought aloud. "People paying attention here...instead of someplace else. It looks like every villain in town is here..."

"Except Time Master!" Otis said.

Olympia said, "I could ask the others if they've seen him!"

Otis was lost in thought. "And the Time Ducks, Iguanas, Hyenas, why are they all here?"

"Rivalry? I don't know." Olympia said. "We could ask somebody about that as well."

"All right, Otis said. They wandered slowly away in opposite directions. Otis soon saw the Great Grinaldi at a rather large, elevated booth near the edge of the plaza.

Otis waited for him to finish his magic act. As the tessaract collapsed, and the audience applauded and began to disperse.

Otis climbed the steps to the stage. "Hi, I'm Agent Otis."

"Hello there young man. I hope you are enjoying this event."

"It looks like fun, but I'm here on business. Who organized this street fair?"

"That is a puzzlement. A few days ago my doorbell rang and when I opened the door, there was a sheep with a clock on its side. It had strange, glowing red eyes. Then I noticed a folder hanging by a string, on the door. I took it off the door to read it."

"What was in the folder?"

"Well, it had a pocket with a generous check inside. And a letter inviting me to this fair."

"Who was it from?"

"It was signed, 'Time Sheep'! Of course I was curious, so I came here and found this booth already set up. Do you know anything about this 'Time Sheep'?"

"Odd Squad has had dealings with them before. They mean us no harm. But why didn't you inform Odd Squad?"

"Well, I suppose I assumed you would know about it already. But really, I was so pre-occupied with planning this magic show today. I didn't think of it."

"Very well," Otis said. "May I please check behind the curtain?"

"You certainly may," he said. "That is another oddity I should have asked about sooner."

Otis took out a flashlight and drew one end of the curtain aside. It was a dark, enclosed space, curtained all around. Otis turned his flashlight on, but the space was still dark. He twisted the dial on his flashlight, slowly, waiting for something to appear.

As he twisted the dial, something began to fade into existence in front of him. A rectangle. He continued turning the dial further, and the glowing, whitish rectangle shifted its shades and hues...and its colors finally sharpened.

Otis let go of the dial and studied what he saw. It seemed to be a rectangular portal, ten feet high, four feet wide, its lower edge hovering about a foot off the floor. The scene inside the rectangle was a field of grass with a few trees under a lavender sky. Otis watched it for a few seconds, until it vanished, replaced with a lone boulder resting on a sandy beach, with a silvery blue sky and one green cloud–but that suddenly became a rocky hillside under an amber sky with blue clouds–then that became a canyon full of gray cylinders under a pale tan sky...Otis turned off the flashlight and stepped back to face Grinaldi.

"It's a portal of some kind, I think."

"That is what I thought, too. It seems to me people will assume it was one of my spectaculars. I have been considering how to incorporate it into my act."

"Someone left it here and wanted everyone to think you had put it here."

"I would assume so." Grinaldi said. "I hope you can solve this."

"Thank you for your time, sir. We'll continue with our investigation. Have a nice day, sir."

"Thank you, you too," Grinaldi said.

Otis eventually found Olympia at Jellybean Joe's booth. Jellybean Joe was surrounded by several shelves and display cases full of jars of various sizes and shapes, some full of jellybeans, some only partly full.

A long, elaborate banner invited visitors to guess how many jellybeans were in a jar, for only one dollar per guess. And then they get to keep the jar.

Olympia noticed one jar in particular. "That jar is almost empty! I count one, two, three, four jellybeans in there!"

"It is strange you are making it so easy to guess the number." Otis said.

Jellybean Joe grinned. "Ah, but you see, not all of these are jellybeans. Some may be tiny candies, or pieces of licorice, or...well, you know, there are so many things they could be. But I always tell the truth once they have guessed!"

"I see," Otis said, more serious than usual. "And who gets the money you collect?"

"Why, I do of course. I have bills to pay, just like everyone else!"

"Um, we were just wondering, if you could please tell us where Time Master is?" Olympia asked sweetly.

Jellybean Joe replied by rolling his eyes, glancing at the jars and humming just a bit.

"Oh, of course!" Olympia said. "You want us to pick a jar and guess how many jellybeans are in it!" She pulled a dollar bill out of her pocket and handed it over. She picked another small jar at random and said, "Twenty-one."

"Wrong," Jellybean Joe said. "Eleven!"

"But you didn't say I had to guess correctly!" Olympia replied, putting the jar in her pocket.

Otis cleared his throat. He murmured to Olympia, "He might be more cooperative if we didn't quibble quite so much."

Smiling at Jellybean Joe, Otis handed over a dollar and picked another, larger jar. He studied it carefully, tipping it over, rolling it in his hands and staring at the contents through the semi-transparent bottom. "Ninety-eight," he said finally. He set the jar back on the counter.

"Wrong! Ninety-seven!" Jellybean Joe said. "But, since you've been so generous–and keeping in mind the villains' no tattle-tale policy-I'll give you a clue." He wrote something down on a sheet of paper and handed it to Olympia.

"Thank you," Olympia said, and showed it to Otis. They stepped aside for the other tourists at the booth, and they studied it for a few minutes. Otis said, "It looks like geographic coordinates."

"Converted to base twenty! He's using letters to represent the extra ten digits!"

"Looks like you're right!" Otis replied. "And those coordinates must be..." He pointed to a large building a block away from the plaza. "That hotel!"

"That's where we're going, then," Olympia said.

The hotel was a grand old building a hundred years old, of red brick and ornate wooden decor, in excellent condition, with a lovely lobby–which was completely deserted.

They approached the front desk, where the desk clerk stood smiling. Otis asked, "Isn't anybody checked in here?"

"No, not for this weekend. Someone has reserved the entire hotel for a small, private wedding. I don't know whose."

Otis reached behind him and took out another gadget. "We have a wedding-locatorizer. It'll tell us the location of the nearest wedding."

He turned it on and he and Olympia read the readout. She said, "The nearest wedding is at a park, two miles east of this hotel!"

The desk clerk shook his head. "That is very strange. I don't know why someone said there would be a wedding here."

"Which suite is the wedding supposed to be in?" Olympia asked.

"I'll show you."

The clerk led them across the lobby, down a wide corridor to a double oak door. On each side of the double door was a long high window of frosted glass, so it wasn't possible to see inside.

"Let's go inside." Otis said.

The clerk opened the door and let them in. "Odd Squad!" Otis and Olympia announced together. Timemaster was there, standing next to...something tall, in a greenish-gray cloak. It looked vaguely humanlike. But instead of a head, it had...fins of some sort, upright, in two rows of four fins, sort of...two of the fins had three little red lights on them. In front of the fins was a little square thing from which sounds emerged.

They heard a deep, gravelly voice coming from the direction of the odd figure. "We were not expecting intrusion."

"We're Odd Squad," Otis said. "We're investigating this odd...situation. That street fair was a diversion, wasn't it?"

Timemaster said, "I think an explanation would be the best thing," he smiled at the strange figure, who seemed to be nodding its assent.

Timemaster continued. "This is an Iconian, a native of a distant planet. He and his fellows fled the collapse of their civilization. They opened up portals to step between worlds, but they had to hurry. They did not know the nature of whatever worlds they were entering."

"And they just randomly hopped here!" Olympia said excitedly. "So grand to see a real alien!"

Timemaster explained, "They did not want to stay here. There are too many beings already here. They have had bad experiences. If they share what they have, others become greedy; if they do not share, others become resentful."

"We wish to leave, anonymously," the Iconian said.

"Is that the reason for all the excitement in the plaza?" Olympia asked.

"Yes," Timemaster said. "One person did catch a glimpse of the Iconians and their portal. We had to act quickly to set up some sort of festival fair, to hide the portal, and so that people would assume any oddness was from one of the performers–or the many costumes."

Otis said. "So you had all the tourists wearing costumes and watching the fair, and not snooping around this hotel," Olympia said.

"That's right." Timemaster said. "And the other hotels picked up a lot of extra business. They didn't mind."

"How did you meet the Iconian?" Olympia asked.

Timemaster explained. "They had stepped through, onto the plaza at night. They found someone walking alone, and scanned his brain to learn the basics of this world's situation and the local language. Then this Iconian wiped his memory of the past hour and released him."

"Then what happened?" Otis asked.

"I was testing a new time distortion staff, and they detected that. They emitted some time distortions to attract my attention. I found the portal at the plaza, we met, and talked. That's why the Time Sheep came to us and not Odd Squad."

Olympia said, "Agent Oscar has been using time devices. Didn't the Iconians detect what he was doing?"

"They did not, for technobabble reasons."

Olympia gasped with delight. "Ooh, I love technobabble! All those big words!"

Otis replied, "The presentation of technobabble does not necessitate the utilization of multisyllabic verbiage."

"I know, but still–all those big words!" Olympia looked around the rest of the room and noticed a group standing around a table in the corner. "Is that the rest of the Iconians?"

"Those who came here," the Iconian replied. "We are ready." The other Iconians turned and approached. Time Master said, "Could you find something for the desk clerk to do?"

"Certainly!" Olympia said, and went out the door.

She went to the front desk and smiled at the clerk. "I have an idea, I wondered if you could please investigate something?"

"I sure can," the clerk smiled back at her.

Olympia said, "I need you to find every instance of the same people attending weddings at this hotel, ever since this hotel opened? Take your time, it's not urgent, but it is terribly important."

"Well, it will take a while."

"Oh, thank you so much! I'll be back later to find out what you have!"

"All right," the clerk said, and went to another computer opposite the counter. As his back was turned, and he lowered his head, concentrating, Time Master, Otis and the Iconians filed quickly and silently out the door, Olympia following after.

They attracted a lot of oohs and aahs as they approached the Great Grinaldi's stage. They waited near the back of the crowd as the magician finished levitating the pieces of the dodecahedron into one whole again. The audience applauded, and Time Master approached the stage, went up to Grinaldi and spoke to him quietly.

Grinaldi nodded his assent, and announced to the crowd, "Now I have an even more spectacular spectacle spanning the stage! Feast your eyes on..." He pulled open the curtain and revealed the portal, now showing a red plateau against a nighttime sky, lit by an enormous moon.

The Great Grinaldi said, "Who dares enter another world?"

A collective gasp emerged from the crowd. They parted to give the Iconians plenty of room. The Iconians strode slowly, with great dignity, to the stage. One at a time they went up the steps to the stage, and formed a semicircle around the portal. One of the Iconians watched the tablet in its hands as the portal showed scenes of a desert, a forested mountain, a dark jungle...finally one last scene appeared, a garden at the edge of a cliff overlooking a river valley. One of the Iconians turned to Grinaldi and Time Master. "Thank you for all you have done." Then the Iconian stepped through the portal, followed by the others. Just as the last of them stepped through, the scene shifted to a rock-strewn beach. Then the portal suddenly contracted to a brightly glowing blue dot, and vanished.

Cheers and applause erupted from the crowd, and Time Master smiled and shook Grinaldi's hand. "They were aliens, wanting to go to their own world," he said.

"I thought it might be something like that," Grinaldi replied.

Otis and Olympia were standing there. "Glad we could help, and thank you."

"You are most welcome," Grinaldi said. "And I hope to see you at my other performances."

"Glad to be there," Olympia said.

"Of course," Time Master added.

The fair was to continue a little while longer, and Time Master walked back to his lab.

Otis and Olympia went to the nearest tube entrance and went back to headquarters, where they went to Ms. O's office.

There they found her, along with one each of the Time Sheep, Goats, Pigs, Figs, Dogs, Hogs, Frogs, Bats, Rats, Cats, Mice, Venus' Fly-Traps, Pandas, Hamsters, Rabbits, Geckos, Sharks, Ducks, Iguanas, Gazelles, Armadillos, Pangolins and Bears.

When they finished their report, the Time Animals and Plants thanked them and collectively vanished. "Whew!" Ms. O said. "I was hoping we wouldn't have to host a fancy dinner for them all!"

Olympia gasped. "I just remembered! I promised that desk clerk I'd get a report from him...which I... didn't... really need..."

Ms. O said, "I can just send an intern. Agent Oxyrhynchus can handle it. Maybe he can find something odd or useful in it."

"Oh. Whew." Olympia said. "I guess we can go relax now."

Ms. O smiled. "Sure. Just as soon as you check out this other oddity..."

THE END

The reason for this story...

In the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Contagion" an Iconian gateway shows scenes on a variety of different planets. One of the scenes shown is Toronto's City Hall! And Odd Squad is filmed in Toronto...


End file.
